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During Thursday’s White House briefing, the Associated Press’ Jim Kuhnhenn interrogated press secretary Josh Earnest over the Obama administration’s unequal treatment of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Kuhnhenn asked the White House flack why the Ayatollah is getting “the benefit of the doubt” from the administration over comments about the Iran deal last week, but Netanyahu does not after his comments that there would be no Palestinian state. JIM KUHNHENN: On Iran, with talks, I believe, scheduled to restart next week, I want to go back to something the president said on Saturday at a press...

CHARLESTON, S.C. (AP) — In stories April 7 and 8 about the shooting of an unarmed black man by a white police officer, The Associated Press erroneously reported that Walter Scott was honorably discharged from the Coast Guard. Scott was granted a lesser discharge, known as a general discharge under honorable conditions, because of a drug-related incident.

The Redskins nickname has been the forgotten NFL controversy of the past several months. With concussions and domestic violence dominating the off-field headlines, the nickname debate circling around the Washington NFL franchise has moved to the backburner recently. However, some interesting developments from The Associated Press could move it back front and center. The organization is considering whether to make a ruling against the polarizing nickname when it comes to the influential AP Stylebook.

The president and CEO of The Associated Press called on Monday for changes to international laws that would make it a war crime to kill journalists or take them hostage. Gary Pruitt said a new framework is needed to protect journalists as they cover conflicts in which they are increasingly seen as targets by extremist groups. […] Last year was a particularly deadly year for the AP—four of the news cooperative’s journalists were killed on assignment. Globally, 61 journalists were killed in the line of duty in 2014, bringing to more than 1,000 the number who have died since 1992,...

President Barack Obama said he takes Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “at his word” for saying that an independent Palestinian state will never coexist with Israel as long as he is in office, yet another sign of the strained relations between longtime allies. […] Obama, who placed a congratulatory telephone call to Netanyahu on Thursday, said he indicated to the prime minister that the U.S. remains committed to a two-state solution as the only way to keep Israel secure. …

A draft nuclear accord now being negotiated between the United States and Iran would force Iran to cut the amount of hardware it could use to make an atomic bomb by about 40 percent for at least a decade, while offering immediate relief from sanctions that have crippled Iran's economy, officials told The Associated Press on Thursday. As an added enticement, elements of a U.N. arms embargo against Iran could be rolled back. The very existence of the draft provided perhaps the clearest indication that the sides were nearing a written agreement as they raced to meet a March 31...

In a writeup which shows that the wire service obviously hasn’t studied the hateful examples of liberal-left hate collected by the Twitter curators at Twitchy, a Thursday afternoon Associated Press writeup claims that conservative “say” they’re happy (with an implication that they don't really mean it), while liberals “show it” (supposedly meaning that they’re genuine). The reporter assigned to this pathetic piece of pablum somehow deemed worthy of “Big Story” status is Seth Borenstein, whose normal beat is twisting his reportage to convince America in light of mountains of contrary evidence and 18 years of flat worldwide temperatures that global...

The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) tried to hide an email about its fear of upsetting the White House from Freedom of Information Act requests by the Associated Press, the AP reported Friday. Associated Press president Gary Pruitt reported in an op-ed on government transparency that, during the course of an AP investigation into Michelle Obama’s dresses, NARA used a privacy exemption to redact a line in an email that was actually about the agency’s fear of the White House: As the president said, the United States should not withhold or censor government files merely because they might be...

What is Zionism? The ideological question, rooted in the 19th century, has gained surprising urgency in an Israeli election campaign that seems more open than had been expected. Seeking to take votes from the nationalistic right of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the relatively liberal opposition has rebranded itself as the Zionist Union—sparking a debate about a concept that some considered resolved when the Jewish state was declared and widely recognized in 1948. […] On the left, politicians speak of true Zionism as requiring the establishment of peace and equality in the land, including by making peace with the Palestinians and...

Lynch said the classified 28 pages, which are drawn from intelligence collection and FBI investigations, "are consistent" with Moussaoui's testimony. The New York lawsuit argues that Saudi rulers were playing a double game in the years before the attacks, expelling Osama bin Laden and declaring opposition to al-Qaida, while secretly funding it to assuage the kingdom's religious conservatives. Moussaoui, in testimony from a supermax prison in Florence, Colorado, told plaintiff lawyers it was "an absolute lie" that Saudi Arabia severed its ties with bin Laden and al-Qaida in 1994. "This is a complete misleading ... assumption of people who are...

In a sometimes heated meeting with Israel’s ambassador to the U.S., several House Democrats expressed anger Wednesday over Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s acceptance of a Republican invitation to address Congress next month. Some of the seven lawmakers—all of whom are Jewish and strong supporters of Israel—urged the prime minister to postpone the speech or hold it somewhere other than Congress, participants said. They told Ambassador Ron Dermer that Netanyahu was unwise to accept a GOP invitation that bypassed President Barack Obama, and to schedule the speech only two weeks before Netanyahu seeks another term in Israel’s elections. The meeting’s purpose...

Bill Maher is throwing some shade on President Obama's credentials as a supposed champion of freedom of the press. The host of HBO's "Real Time" sat down Friday to discuss media coverage of secret government work with documentary filmmaker Laura Poitras, one of the journalists centrally involved in bringing revelations from former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden to light. "I don't understand why he is perhaps the worst president we've had on clamping down on the press," Maher said. "He's used the Espionage Act more than any other president, right?" Maher added. Other members of the media have blasted...

The Associated Press is among the numerous news outlets that have been self-censoring images of the Charlie Hebdo cartoons that may have provoked Wednesday's deadly Paris attack. In a statement, the news organization said that such censorship is standard policy: None of the images distributed by AP showed cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad. It’s been our policy for years that we refrain from moving deliberately provocative images. The conservative Washington Examiner publication then pointed out that the AP nonetheless continued to carry an image of Andres Serrano's 1987 "Piss Christ" photograph—which is certainly provocative, having been the subject of massive...

In a move likely to further inflame tensions with Israel's Arab citizens, the Israeli Cabinet on Sunday approved a bill to legally define the country as the nation-state of the Jewish people. The decision, which set off a stormy debate that could bring down Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's brittle coalition government, followed weeks of deadly Arab-Jewish violence and was denounced by critics as damaging to the country's democratic character and poorly timed at such a combustible moment. It now heads toward a full parliamentary vote on Wednesday....

International news agency Associated Press (AP) has been accused of anti-Israel bias before, but this time the agency has surpassed even itself in reporting the Jerusalem terror attack in which 3-month-old Chaya Zisel Braun was murdered. Its headline reporting the attack was "Israeli Police Shoot Man in East Jerusalem", referring to the terrorist (!) who was driving the car that drove into people waiting at a light rail station. The original article (later changed), began with the words: "Israeli police say they have shot a man whose car slammed into a crowded train stop in east Jerusalem, in what they...

JERUSALEM, Israel -- The Associated Press is facing some heat for its offensive headline following Thursday's terror attack in Jerusalem. The AP's initial headline read, "Israeli Police Shoot Man in East Jerusalem," with no mention that police were responding to a terror attack. The vehicular attack injured seven people and killed three month-old Chaya Zissel Braun, who held dual U.S.-Israeli citizenship. After repeated complaints, AP changed the headline to "Car Slams Into East Jerusalem Train Station. And finally, AP acquiesed to complaints, changing it to "Palestinian Kills Baby at Jerusalem Station." But there are still calls for the wire service...

The Associated Press has a big social media problem. A string of poorly worded and misleading tweets from that news organization have begun to seriously damage that institution’s coveted brand as an apolitical and trusted reporting outlet. The series of terrible tweets from the AP began on July 22 when the organization rushed to promote a breaking story regarding the American intelligence community’s formal assessment of the parties involved in the July 17 attack on Malaysian Airlines Flight 17. BREAKING: US officials: Intel suggests Malaysia plane shot down by separatists, no link to Russia found.— The Associated Press (@AP)...

Israel’s air campaign in Gaza may violate international laws prohibiting the targeting of civilians, the U.N.’s top human rights official said Friday. Navi Pillay, the U.N. high commissioner for human rights, said the Israeli military, which claims to have hit more than 1,100 targets that it says are mostly rocket-launching sites, and the Gaza militants, who have fired more than 550 rockets against Israel, must abide by international law. […] Pillay says she’s seen for herself in Gaza how traumatic the airstrikes and rocket attacks are for civilians, particularly children. Her office says civilians bear the brunt of the conflict...

Obama camp angry, embarrassed over 2009 Nobel Prize: official The Associated Press Posted: May 15, 2014 5:24 PM ET Last Updated: May 15, 2014 5:24 PM ET A senior Norwegian diplomat says his country's former ambassador to the United States was given a verbal lashing by Barack Obama's chief of staff when the president was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2009. Morten Wetland said Thursday the ambassador, Wegger Stroemmen, was approached by Rahm Emanuel, now Chicago's mayor, who accused Norway of "fawning" to the newly elected U.S. leader. Wetland, the Norwegian ambassador to the United Nations at the time,...

Wyoming is the first state to reject adopting new K-12 science standards proposed by national education groups. The Wyoming Board of Education decided recently that the Next Generation Science Standards need more review after questions were raised about how the standards address man-made global warming. Wyoming is the nation’s leading coal producing state. …